


Little Things

by TheTriggeredHappy



Series: Running Blind [2]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Mental Health Issues, POV Multiple, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-07-17 18:26:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16101269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTriggeredHappy/pseuds/TheTriggeredHappy
Summary: Some stories couldn't fit into Running Blind, either due to pacing or lack of relevance to the rest of the story. That doesn't make them any less important.So here they are.





	1. A Little Help

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[*confetti* surprise! guess who's writing drabbles until the sequel is ready!
> 
> gonna say it now-updates will be sporadic and irregular as hell, and will probably be a little less polished. these are mostly just ideas that i couldn't fit into RB itself but still exist within the RB universe in some way, shape, or form. uhhhhhhhh anyways, fuckin enjoy]]

 

 

The one downside to them switching between their respective rooms so often was the fact that Scout was constantly forgetting things. Questions like “Have you seen my keys?” or “Where’s my hat?” or “What happened to my watch?” became a constant presence every time they moved into or out of Scout’s room or Sniper’s camper.

 

Scout was flitting around his own room now, constantly patting at his pockets.

 

“I have my keys,” he said aloud, more to himself than to Sniper, who was stood in the doorway waiting. “My hat is on my head. My other hat is in... laundry?”

 

“You don’t sound sure,” Sniper said, raising an eyebrow.

 

“...Why isn’t my other hat in the camper?” Scout asked, looking over at Sniper, well and truly lost. “And... laundry isn’t until tomorrow.”

 

“Yesterday I was refilling the water an’ battery on the camper, so I had to drive it, so I made you clean up. So...?” Sniper led, letting Scout figure out the rest.

 

“...So, I did laundry early,” Scout finished. “And my bag is in the camper.”

 

“Right.”

 

“I have my keys and my hat, and the bag is in the camper,” Scout said, pacing the room, opening and closing a drawer for reasons only Scout could understand. “I’m forgetting something. What am I forgetting?”

 

“You’ll turn out the lights when you leave,” Sniper supplies. “You have on your shoes.”

 

“I have on my shoes. I have... I have my keys. They’re in my pocket. Uh. I don’t need my bat.”

 

“You don’t need your bat,” Sniper agreed.

 

“I have my keys. What am I forgetting?” Scout asked again, pacing the room in a circle, finally walking over to the closet and opening the door.

 

A beat of silence.

 

“UMBRELLA!” Scout hollered at maximum volume, taking an umbrella out of the closet and holding it up triumphantly. “It said on the radio that it might rain today and I stole your umbrella and you need one!”

 

“Are we good then?” Sniper asked, holding the door open enough that Scout could walk through.

 

“We’re good!” Scout agreed, walking through the door, flicking off the lights as he went.

 

“This is why you don’t leave your bag in the camper,” Sniper chided. “You only forget things when you don’t have your bag.”

 

“I know, I just forgot,” Scout said, checking the lock on the door. He paused. “Uh... do I have my keys?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Snipes,” Scout murmured, prodding Sniper on the shoulder.

 

Sniper didn’t react.

 

“Snipes,” Scout repeated, prodding Sniper harder.

 

Sniper didn’t react.

 

“Snipes, you know ignoring me isn’t gonna make me quit.”

 

“I can _hope_ ,” Sniper groaned into the pillow.

 

“You gotta wake up,” Scout said, moving to sling an arm around his torso to rock him. “It’s a work day.”

 

“I don’t wanna,” Sniper complained, burying his face further into the pillow.

 

Scout looked at him for a second, then rolled his eyes. He put a hand to the back of Sniper’s head, carding through his hair, and planted a kiss on the visible part of his cheek.

 

Sniper lifted his head a bit, tilting to give better cheek-smooch access.

 

Scout obliged, planting a few more rapid-fire kisses across his cheek, up near his temple, on the side of his nose. In only a moment or so Sniper was smiling, turning his head more fully to kiss Scout in return—

 

—and Scout pulled away.

 

“Nuh-uh,” Scout said with a grin, “I dole out real kisses to guys who get out of bed.”

 

Sniper whined at that, not using his words, just complaining quietly, eyes still screwed shut against the beam of light that reflected onto his face.

 

“C’mon, I’m like two feet away,” Scout said, and moved down the ladder of the bunk, standing on the ground. “And I’ve gotta get ready too, so this offer is limited time only.”

 

“You’re mean to me,” Sniper muttered.

 

“You’ve got like fifteen seconds.”

 

Three of those seconds, Sniper kept pouting silently. Two, he sighed for. Five he spent kicking away blankets, three getting down the ladder.

 

He was clearly still half-asleep, and the kiss was soft, lazy. Scout couldn’t help but smile at it.

 

Sniper pulled away, blinked at Scout for a second in an attempt to wake up more fully, then went to kiss him again.

 

Scout side-stepped. “Nuh-uh. Seconds once we’ve brushed our teeth an’ stuff,” he said. “We can’t be late.”

 

Sniper whined at that again, watching with sleepy dismay as Scout moved into the tiny bathroom of the camper. “When will you stop bullying me like this in the mornings?” he asked.

 

“When it stops being the easiest and maybe only way to get you out of bed,” Scout replied, then he was brushing his teeth as Sniper blearily started on coffee.

 

* * *

 

 

Scout tossed his keys on the table, moving to the box of records, and Sniper stopped him.

 

“Oi. Where are the keys?” Sniper asked.

 

“They’re right there,” Scout said, looking and pointing. “What, don’t you trust me to remember where the keys are?”

 

“Make eye contact real quick?” Sniper requested.

 

Scout’s eyebrows were furrowed, but he complied. “Okay?”

 

“Okay, maintain eye contact for a minute here,” Sniper requested, expression passive, speaking slowly.

 

“Okay?” Scout said, more confused by the second.

 

“Awright. Now without lookin’ away or lookin’ around, point at the keys for me?”

 

A beat of silence passed. “Oh, fuck off,” Scout said, clearly annoyed.

 

“That’s not an answer.”

 

Scout flipped him off.

 

“The keys aren’t on the ceiling, love.”

 

Scout rolled his eyes, and turned to sift through the records. “I’m tryin’, here,” he muttered.

 

“I know you are,” Sniper said, “I just wanna help. Think you’ll forget if you brought your keys, now?”

 

“...No,” Scout muttered.

 

“There we go. It's helping already.”

 

“Don’t be so goddamn smug about it,” Scout muttered, ears turning red. He continued to dig through the records as Sniper shrugged off his vest, hanging it up by the door. Sniper was so preoccupied with the task that he almost didn’t hear the next phrase, hardly above a murmur. “...But thank you.”

 

"No problem," Sniper replied.

 

* * *

 

 

They weren’t running late, but it only took Scout a little bit to notice that Sniper was really dragging his feet. He kept pausing halfway through tasks and just fully listening to Scout jabber on about whatever the topic of the morning was. By the time Scout was ready, Sniper was moving at a snail’s pace.

 

Scout contained his worry for a little bit, then exhaled, pushing Sniper over so they could both cram into the same side of the booth table.

 

“You’re tired,” Scout observed.

 

Sniper finished a long sip of coffee before managing a meager, self-conscious nod, unable to make eye contact, just staring into his cup.

 

“Is it... is it like, the physical tired, or the other kind?” he asked.

 

“I... I dunno,” Sniper murmured, sounding a little pained. “I just... I don’t... wanna.”

 

Scout waited for him to finish the sentence. He didn’t. “C’mon. Don’t wanna what?” he prodded.

 

“It’s all a lot,” Sniper murmured, sinking lower in his seat.

 

Scout thought for a moment. “Okay, I’ve got an idea. Possibly the best idea,” he said. “I can go over to base an’ grab breakfast, an’ you can wait here an’ chug coffee, an’ I can bring you food once you’ve had some time to chill.”

 

“I don’t—“ Sniper started, voice a little reedy, but he cut himself off cold. There was tension in his shoulders.

 

“...Or, if you want, I can bring food back an’ we can eat in here,” Scout amended. “If you don’t wanna be alone.”

 

The tension seeped away. Sniper nodded, looked over at Scout. “Yeah,” he said.

 

“Okay. I’ll be like... I dunno, ten minutes?” he said, and waited for Sniper to nod again before he stood up. “Alright. It’s Heavy’s turn to cook, but I can just grab from the fridge of whatever if you want. Got anything in mind?”

 

Sniper fidgeted with his cup. “M’not picky,” he finally murmured.

 

“You know I’m gonna make you eat whatever I bring back,” Scout said sternly, hands on his hips.

 

“I know. I’m really... just not picky,” Sniper insisted.

 

“Okay. Ten minutes,” Scout promised, pulling on his hat. “I’m leaving my stuff here.”

 

Sniper nodded.

 

Scout knew that he probably didn’t _need_  to run all the way there and back. Then again, there were a lot of things he didn’t _need_  to do that he still did, and he also didn’t care. So he ran all the way to the kitchen—Heavy wasn’t done cooking, but could see that he was rushing and so didn’t start a conversation—and ran all the way back, arms full of various foods.

 

He ended up having to knock on the door by kicking at it, but Sniper didn’t seem to mind. Scout carefully dumped the food off on the table, and Sniper’s eyes went a little wide at the sheer volume of it.

 

“You can’t expect us to eat _all_  of this,” Sniper said, picking up one of the dozen or so granola bars and looking it over.

 

“Nah, some of this is for if you still feel bad later,” Scout replied, starting to move the food into less disorder. “We got like three apples, half a thing of bananas, a bushel or whatever it’s called, we got a box of cereal—not a whole box, but it’s like, half full maybe—an’ a thing of milk, we got approximately a billion granola bars because Hardhat bought ‘em in bulk last time he went for groceries, and uh... eh, fuck it, you can dig through too. We got options, is what I’m sayin’. Whole four course meal of breakfast-adjacent food.”

 

The sheer mass of it seemed to provide both of the two things Scout had been going for—first, that _something_  would appeal enough to Sniper that he would actually want to eat. Second, that it was ridiculous enough to make Sniper laugh.

 

Well, it wasn’t actual laughing, but his eyes were crinkling up and he was giving Scout a look of mild disapproval. “Did you leave anything for the rest of the blokes?” Sniper asked.

 

“Yeah, they’ll be fine. Besides, it’s Heavy’s turn to cook, and his breakfasts are on par with Hardhat’s. They’ll live.”

 

Sniper rolled his eyes anyways, and he picked up one of the granola bars, glancing at the wrapper before he pulled it open. Scout went for an apple.

 

He’d been pausing to take a bite when Sniper inhaled, held for a second, exhaled, the way he did when he was trying to figure out how to say something. Scout took another large bite to give him the additional second to think.

 

“Thanks,” Sniper said. “For—well, for brekkie obviously, but also... tryin’ so hard with me. I know it’s not... easy to put up with.”

 

“Eh,” Scout shrugged. “You put up with my weird memory stuff, I help you with your nervous stuff. An’ it’s not difficult anyways, really. I don’t mind it.”

 

Sniper nodded, and went back to eating.

 

“...Hey, uh, by the way, that thing you said a second back, uh, “brekkie”, was it?” Scout asked, grinning.

 

He ducked the granola bar aimed at his head with a laugh.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[approximately three people in the world will understand the granola bars reference. to summarize, i'm calling scout a douchebag for taking all the goddamn chewy bars.
> 
> tumblr's thetriggeredhappy, updates when they're ready. love yall]]


	2. A Little Brighter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[not all of these are going to be regarding mental health, this is just what i got done next. tw for talks about depression, severe and mild]]

 

 

It was early fall, now. Apparently Sniper’s favorite season was fall—Scout’s was spring, yet another little difference between the two of them. With fall, apparently, came more campfires as the amount of bugs roaming around slightly dipped, and as the nightly cold became just slightly colder.

 

It was one of these campfires that had Sniper just nostalgic enough to talk about some things.

 

Scout, admittedly, was a little tired that night. He’d been busy all day after battle doing little tasks for his teammates, in a weirdly helpful mood ever since the morning. So he wasn’t quite as talkative as usual, instead just lying on his back next to Sniper, head in his lap, eyes closed. He could vaguely remember humming some tune, and Sniper saying something sappy, and blinking his eyes open to grin at him.

 

And then, after a silence, Sniper suddenly spoke, almost joltingly.

 

“Um. I’m glad you—“ Sniper started, then just as suddenly stopped. After a bit, Scout opened his eyes again. Sniper wasn’t looking at him, eyes instead trained on the fire, jaw tight.

 

“What?” Scout asked, a little worried.

 

“Nothin’. Nevermind,” Sniper said quietly, sounding almost disappointed.

 

“No, what?” Scout asked again, concern mounting, sitting up so he could better look at Sniper.

 

Sniper continued to stare at the fire for a few moments. Then he turned his head, looked at Scout. There was something serious in his expression, something that caught Scout a little off guard.

 

“You’re glad I what?” Scout goaded, head tilting just slightly.

 

Sniper looked back at the fire again. “I’m glad you showed up,” he murmured, voice grating on the bottom of his vocal register.

 

Scout’s usual reaction when Sniper was sweet was to grin and tease him, to say “Awwwww” loudly and give him a noisy kiss on the cheek and a too-tight hug. But something stopped him just then.

 

“What... do you mean?” Scout asked instead.

 

Sniper was chewing on the inside of his cheek, not looking at him. “Can you lie back down again?” he finally asked, just a little sheepish, and some of Scout’s worry disappeared, and he did as requested without fanfare.

 

Sniper pulled Scout’s hat off, moved to mess with Scout’s hair, tracing lazy patterns into his scalp. It felt nice, nice enough that Scout relaxed, closed his eyes again. Then, and only then, did Sniper speak.

 

“I dunno if you... well, I know you’d spoken to me before you got blinded,” Sniper said. “A few times, when I came around base. An’... you’re maybe... well, you’re the only one who was persistent with me. You were nice. I didn’t really know why. The others were always just polite, maybe friendly sometimes, but I was never the first anyone would go to for anythin’. But you’d single me out sometimes just to come talk to me, an’ I appreciated it.” A pause. “This... isn’t exactly what this is about, but, what’d you think of me before... the whole mess?”

 

Scout thought about it. “I figured you were pretty cool,” he settled on. “I didn’t want to annoy you or anything, but also sometimes I figured, y’know. Your job’s probably lonely, maybe you’d like to talk to somebody, so maybe you’d put up with me. Nice, probably more responsible than like, half the team. An’ you’re second-youngest, if we don’t wonder about Pyro, so there’s that.”

 

A pause, Sniper processing.

 

Scout couldn’t help but blurt out the next sentence. “Also I thought you were kinda hot.”

 

That made Sniper give a startled laugh, pausing his hand in Scout’s hair. “I’m trying to be serious,” he chided.

 

"I'm not kidding! You're a stud, Legs, didn't anyone ever tell you?" Scout asked, flashing a lopsided grin.

 

"...To be fair, I did have a bit of a crush even before I talked to you," Sniper said thoughtfully. He paused. "This wasn't what I wanted to talk about. We went off the rails."

 

“Sorry,” Scout said, only a little bit sorry. “Go on.”

 

“Well,” Sniper continued. “I just... well, you were right earlier. I was... I didn’t talk to the others very much, an’ talking to you was easy. _Is_  easy. An’ it was nice. But it wasn’t...”

 

A pause. “Wasn’t what?” Scout asked.

 

“I can’t think of a way to say this that doesn’t sound rude,” Sniper murmured.

 

“Nah, I know you wouldn’t be rude on purpose, just say it,” Scout replied.

 

“...I liked talking to you, but it wasn’t enough,” Sniper said. “Nothing felt like enough. Everything was... I, I’m sorry, I dunno how to explain it.”

 

“Take your time,” Scout said patiently.

 

Sniper paused for a bit, gathering his thoughts again. Scout waited. “I was... not in a good place,” Sniper finally said. “I—well, I wasn’t doing worse than usual, but my usual was... bad. I couldn’t sleep at night, an’ I didn’t have the energy to do anything except the job, an’ I just didn’t... feel... I just, I just didn’t feel. I was all bogged down an’ I don’t know why. I couldn’t do anything. An’ talkin’ to you, or winning matches, or drinkin’ with the blokes, that stuff was all _nice_ , but it wasn’t enough to make me... not feel bad.”

 

There was a pause. “You still can’t sleep sometimes,” Scout murmured, allowing some worry to creep into his voice.

 

Sniper exhaled, not quite a sigh, but not terribly unlike a sigh. “Yeah, but it was... worse. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t remember to shower, or shave, or eat. Everything was... a lot. Too much, almost.” A pause. “And it’s... it’s been worse than that, as well.”

 

“Worse than forgetting to take care’a yourself?” Scout asked, turning his head slightly but not opening his eyes. He had a feeling that would make Sniper clam up again, and he didn’t want that.

 

“Yeah. An’... I wasn’t gonna talk about it because I’m past it, an’ it’s over, but you’ve told me all sorts of things about yourself and it just feels unfair that I don’t do the same, an’, an’ you deserve to know—“

 

“Snipes, I, I’m not gonna make you talk about anything if you don’t want to,” Scout said hurriedly, eyebrows furrowing. “It’s okay.”

 

“I do want to,” Sniper replied, hand a bit tight in his hair now. “I do.”

 

Silence from Scout. Sniper was turning over his words again.

 

“I wanted... to... or, I didn’t want to be... um. I was... I wasn’t healthy. I was unhealthy and it was on purpose. I nearly died and… and it was on purpose,” he settled for. “I’d run off from home when I was younger, maybe seventeen, because I wanted to be a hunter, an’ when I was twenty-two I started takin’ on jobs as a tracker, and then as a sniper when I was twenty-three, but between those times... I was doing bad. I was... I was drinkin’ a lot, I was smoking an’ hangin’ around with the wrong crowds, I was... it was illegal, and I nearly died, nothing made sense while I was sober so I decided not to be sober anymore. I was...”

 

The hand not resting in Scout’s hair was now gripping the fabric of the shoulder of his shirt, and Scout moved his own hand to lay on top of it. Sniper finally paused for a proper breath, lacing their fingers together, and after a few seconds he let out a deep exhale.

 

“Then came this job. I wasn’t... doing that anymore, the illegal parts, but I was still... I drank a lot, sometimes. Never enough to go to Respawn, but I was getting there. I just... I wanted out. I wanted out _so badly_.” He took a steadying breath. “Then... the incident happened, and Spook showed up to drag me into the infirmary, an’ you asked me to help you. I couldn’t say no, not to you, an’ you... you cried, while we were walking back.”

 

Scout cringed slightly. “Ah, christ, I forgot I did that,” he groaned.

 

“You were panicking, I understood that. An’ once I got you back and settled, I just... for once, I didn’t just want to clock out and go to sleep. You woke up, we went to eat, an’ you just kept talking to me. You kept taking my side on things. You treated me like… like a person, instead of a gun. Then first chance I got, I grabbed some of my gear and trudged back out to the field to find your tags.”

 

Scout’s free hand moved to grip at his dog tags without him thinking, and he forced his arm back down to his side. “How long would you stay out looking for them?” Scout asked.

 

“If it was a nice night, I’d just look while the moon was out, so only a few hours or so. On that rainy night when I found them, I brought a lantern though, some of the other times too, an’ then I’d be out just about all night.”

 

Sniper paused.

 

“But... suddenly I wasn’t trying to sleep every chance I got, or get drunk. Partly because I had to take care of you, I s’pose. Then it turned out eventually that I didn’t _need_  to take care of you, not necessarily, but I still... I started wanting to be okay. Just in case you needed me for something. Then I started wanting to be okay because I figured any less would make you worry, an’ I didn’t want that. Then I just… realized how nice it was to feel okay. Just... for me.”

 

Scout squeezed his hand at the dry crack of his voice. Sniper swallowed hard.

 

“I... I’m not sayin’ you magically cured me or anything, I still have trouble getting out of bed most days, an’ I still have relapses, an’ there are still times where I crave getting wasted just to get outta m’own head, but... Scout, I...”

 

Scout’s breath caught in his throat, and he couldn’t help it, he blinked his eyes open. In the flickering light, Sniper’s eyes were shiny with wonder, with remorse, with something else entirely.

 

“Scout, I think you saved my life,” Sniper confessed, voice weak, breath weak, and Scout sat up as he was overcome with the impossibly strong need to hold Sniper close to his chest and never let go.

 

Sniper clung to him, then. There was desperation in the motion, he was shaking, he held on tight, he hardly managed to inhale, let alone exhale again. He buried his face in Scout’s shoulder, his posture tense as he stubbornly held back tears, but as Scout moved to rub circles into his back, he stopped holding them in anymore.

 

The positioning was admittedly awkward for Scout, put a weird strain on his back, and his leg was going a little numb, but he didn’t dare move. Not when Sniper was threatening to fall apart on him. Not when Sniper had never had the courage to be this vulnerable with Scout, not ever. With Sniper suddenly gone this fragile, Scout would rather die than move.

 

“I was just so scared, all the time,” Sniper gasped, halfway to a sob, and Scout held him tighter. “You let me be scared for someone else for once. You let me care again.”

 

The fire had nearly burnt out by the time Sniper’s sniffling had finally faded into the background. Scout still didn’t move, continuing to rock them lightly in place, almost too slow to notice. Only then did Sniper start to pull back, and he wiped his eyes with his sleeves, looked at Scout, face just a bit puffy.

 

Scout managed a smile. “That’s what you wanted to tell me?” he asked gingerly.

 

Sniper nodded, glancing at the dying fire.

 

Scout gave him a pat on his shoulder, smile widening. “I’m glad you told me. This... has been eatin’ at you for a while, hasn’t it?” he murmured.

 

Sniper nodded again. “I... I just thought you deserved to know,” he said softly. He looked at Scout then, and after a moment he was leaning in, pressing gentle kisses across his face—both cheekbones, between his eyes, on the side of his nose, at his temples. Just a slow barrage of pecks, until Scout was wrinkling up his face trying to hold back laughter at the vaguely ticklish feeling of it all. “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Sniper breathed, and Scout smiled, something in his chest fluttering.

 

“Well, long as I have anythin’ to say about it, you won’t have to be without me for a good long while. I’ll cling to you like a goddamn barnacle for as long as possible. You’re stuck with me,” Scout said.

 

Sniper smiled, pressing their foreheads together. “I wouldn’t want it any other way,” he said.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[i'll outline it more clearly in case the subtext was muggy-sniper has depression, and was in a really really bad place in his life before he started being an actual sniper. love doesn't fix anyone, that's not what happened, but it did help a lot.
> 
> i promise i'm working on "Reaping What You Sew", im just. slow. next chapter of this should be a bit lighter in tone]]


	3. A Little Moment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[this one is "the moment each of them realized they were in love" and the first bit has been rewritten about eight times]]

 

 

The moment itself was nothing. It was a nothing moment, the space between everything else that always got forgotten. One of thousands of cookie-cutter banal mornings, the exact kind that his mind wouldn’t usually hesitate to jettison the memory of, because it so certainly didn’t matter.

 

But Sniper remembered it clearly, and he sincerely hoped that he would always remember it clearly, because it was in that absolute _nothing_  of a moment that he realized something indescribably important.

 

Scout slept in, and for once Sniper had been the one to wake the blinded man to start their day instead of the other way around. Scout had taken his morning shower (a prospect Sniper didn’t understand) and gotten dressed, and was jabbering away as he tied his shoes.

 

Sniper, meanwhile, had hardly enough energy to get out of bed, pull on clothes, and start on coffee. Scout had just gotten out of the bathroom all dressed when the machine beeped, and Sniper decided he’d brush his teeth _after_  coffee. Not bothering to get out a cup, he just sipped directly from the coffee pot, rubbing at his eyes to keep himself awake until the caffeine could kick in.

 

Scout was talking about something, Sniper processed, but he was having trouble tuning in. Luckily, Scout always seemed fine with that. He even seemed surprised when Sniper made it clear that he was paying attention sometimes, as if he was just talking on auto pilot to fill the silence. Sniper reasoned idly to himself that if it was important, he wouldn’t mind repeating himself.

 

To be fair, Sniper was also a little distracted just looking at Scout.

 

Not—not in the same way as so often happened. Or, not often, either! He didn’t just look at Scout for no reason, and if he did, it wouldn’t be often. It was just that Scout was good looking, and Sniper obviously noticed. Not in a weird way! He wasn’t being weird! It was just a true thing. It wasn’t weird.

 

Anyways.

 

What was distracting Sniper just then was the fact that Scout clearly wasn’t as awake as he was trying to appear. For starters, he was trying to put his shoe on the opposite foot. The tag of his shirt—old baseball jersey from when he played in school, apparently—was sticking out over his collar, and when he’d towelled off his hair getting out of the shower, he’d left one side sticking up awkwardly. He looked like a right mess, and usually such obvious signs of sleepiness would’ve been long noted and addressed by Scout’s constantly-moving and perpetually-fidgeting hands as they tried to find something to settle on. It was only in the moments just after Scout woke up that he ever seemed to be able to linger on something fully. A symptom of his borderline endless energy, probably.

 

Sniper took a gulp from his coffee pot.

 

He walked over, moved to take the shoe out of Scout’s hand where he was trying to cram it on his foot, replacing it with the correct one. He flipped the tag back to the inside of Scout’s shirt, and with a single motion he brushed his hair down to sit correctly, plopping his hat on his head to finish things off.

 

Once he processed what all Sniper had done, Scout flashed a sunny, sleepy grin and chirped a thank you, his broken eyes somehow training themselves on his face for just a moment by sheer guesswork, and Sniper had felt his heart lurch as he leaned against the counter again. What a funny feeling that spotlight smile had left him with, for just a moment. It was the feeling your eyes had after a flash of light, but it was a tactile sensation somewhere around his left lung.

 

In that moment, Sniper realized, like being struck by a lightning bolt, that he was in love.

 

“Bugger,” he whispered into the coffee pot.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sniper found himself lying on the sofa in the rec room and glaring his dismay into the panes that made up the ceiling, contemplating the fact that he’d gone and fallen in love.

 

Bugger.

 

Historically speaking, falling in love hadn’t ever really gone well for Sniper. There was the first person he fell in love with, when each of them were hardly a teenager, and who was definitely not the right person to fall in love with judging from the error the other boy made, effectively snuffing out that little relationship. There were a few more relationships during the turbulent middle section of his life after high school, two of which ended because he’d developed feelings even though they had agreed that feelings wouldn’t be needed. The only truly good relationship he’d ever had was brief, because he’d realized he didn’t like her (or any girl) in a romantic sense and had bit the bullet early on in saying it. She was extremely kind about it, and had stayed in touch with him.

 

But all of those times, he had up front wanted a romance or something similar. He’d never fallen in love like this before. This was an indescribably strong feeling that welled up in his chest every time he considered what it would be like if Scout stuck around. It left him feeling like he was a stack of cards ready to be knocked down, and any minute now Scout might just flick him over on a whim.

 

It was terrifying. It was wonderful. It was just a little bit silly.

 

He wondered for a few moments if it was even really capital L “Love”. Maybe he was just lonely. Maybe he just hadn’t ever let himself get attached to anyone after that first train wreck of a “romance” happened. Maybe this was just him overreacting to the first bond he’d had in a very long time. Admittedly, he’d started developing a bit of a crush on Scout back before all this blindness nonsense. This could just be the crush and his totally platonic but equally strong affections meshing together.

 

He wanted to kiss Scout right on his dumb mouth and hold him close and never let go.

 

Sniper flat-out didn’t understand what he was dealing with.

 

The sound of footsteps caused Sniper to jerk upwards into a sitting position, looking for the source. It was pretty late, and he hadn’t anticipated anyone else being up.

 

Who else would it be but Spy, who acknowledged him but with a simple tip of the head and flick of the hand, walking calmly into the kitchen. He was still dressed, but missing his suit jacket and his tie. Maybe he was also having some sort of trouble sleeping. Those were apparently fairly common among the mercenaries.

 

Sniper suddenly realized that maybe Spy showing up was a stroke of luck.

 

“Oi, Spy, I have a question to ask,” Sniper said, shifting to sit more comfortably on the couch, crossing his legs beneath him.

 

“And I have no guarantee on if I will answer honestly, if at all,” Spy replied from within the kitchen, just out of sight.

 

“You know stuff about relationships, right?” Sniper asked, pushing down his self-consciousness for the moment.

 

“Obviously,” Spy replied, sounding just a little offended that Sniper even needed to ask.

 

“Okay. Because me an’ Scout—“

 

“And my interest in ze conversation dies,” Spy said, leaving the kitchen and walking towards the exit of the common room, a full bottle of wine in hand.

 

“No, c’mon!” Sniper pleaded.

 

“I do not wish to know details of his romantic life,” Spy said a little sharply, but he’d stopped in the doorway to glare.

 

“That’s the thing, I don’t think it’s a romantic life yet,” Sniper said, expression pained.

 

Spy paused, torn between two very attractive concepts; getting wine-drunk alone and not dealing with relationship garbage, and listening to the latest drama.

 

Apparently the second won out, because he sighed, moved back to the kitchen. “I am fetching a glass, I do not discuss nonsense sober,” he said a bit sharply.

 

A minute or so later, Spy was sitting in one of the chairs, glass in hand, and leveling an annoyed look at Sniper. After a beat of quiet, he gestured impatiently for Sniper to begin talking.

 

Sniper stewed on his words for a few moments, chewed on them. “Here’s the thing, Scout is... the best,” he started. Spy rolled his eyes, but didn’t interrupt, instead taking a sip from his glass. “He’s a stand-up bloke an’ I’m glad to be friends with him. But even before all this blindness buggery, I’d gone an’ gotten... guess it could be called a crush. An’ I figured that’d be that, I’d ignore it an’ just be friends with him, crushes eventually pass anyways an’ his friendship is important to me.”

 

“But,” Spy led expectantly.

 

“... _But_ , then I went an’ caught feelings,” Sniper said, already guilty.

 

“Feelings,” Spy deadpanned.

 

“Like... like, _love_  feelings,” Sniper murmured, voice hushed.

 

Silence in the room, for a long several seconds. The tense sort of silence. “Do not use zat word lightly,” Spy warned slowly. “Not in front of a Frenchman.”

 

“I’m not. I... I think I really went an’ fell in love with him,” Sniper said, gaze locked on his own hands, clasped in front of him, elbows leaned on his knees. “An’... I dunno what to do. I’m scared that if he finds out, he’ll hate me.”

 

“Yes, how dare you develop deep affection and appreciation for Scout. So inconsiderate,” Spy snarked, rolling his eyes again. Sniper shot him a glare, and he sighed, taking another gulp of wine before he spoke again. “How are you sure it is romantic love, bushman? Could it not be platonic?”

 

“I wanna kiss ‘im real bad, so I don’t think so, no,” Sniper replied.

 

“And how are you sure zat it is not simply a more severe... “crush”, I believe you said?”

 

“I-I dunno how t’tell the difference, mate,” Sniper admitted.

 

Spy paused, considered. “...Hm. Answer me zis: what do you most dislike about Scout?”

 

“Wait, _dis_ like?” Sniper asked, eyebrows furrowed when he glanced up. Spy nodded, and Sniper’s gaze fell again.

 

“Take your time,” Spy said, surprisingly forgiving for once. Maybe he was just tired. Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that he was now getting through his second glass.

 

Finally, Sniper spoke. “He’s stubborn,” he said. “He refuses to give up with me. An’ it’s sweet, it really is, but he doesn’t know when to quit, can’t recognize a lost cause. An’ he’s... well, he’s not stupid, he really isn’t, but he gets caught in his own head, doesn’t notice things around him. An’ that’s a bit frustrating. I dunno if I can learn to be more outright with him, or in general, an’ that... bothers me sometimes.”

 

“What else bothers you?” Spy asked, voice even. “In your relationship with him?”

 

Sniper had to think about it again, just to get his words in order. “...I feel like any minute now, he’s gonna figure out that I’m not as good as he thinks I am, an’ he’ll be disappointed and leave. Find someone better,” he admitted. “I wanna convince him to stay with me, but he doesn’t know that he shouldn’t want to be with me yet. I... I dunno if that makes sense, but...”

 

Spy just nodded. “Well, I have good news and bad news, mon ami,” he sighed. “Good news, zis is not a simple crush. Bad news, you are indeed in love with him.”

 

Sniper groaned.

 

“Agreed,” Spy said.

 

“Whot should I do?” he asked, looking at Spy, eyebrows all drawn together.

 

“You could do what I did when I found someoneterribly stubborn, fell in love far too quickly, and was zhen terrified of zem realizing I was not worth zheir affections,” Spy offered. “It worked for _me_ , at least.”

 

“An’ whot was that, then?” Sniper asked, some of the dismay and worry easing in his chest.

 

Spy took a sip of wine, glanced it over, looked back over at Sniper. “I married her,” he shrugged.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sniper’s head seemed to be spinning, even a full day later. The axis around which it spun consisted of a single word.

 

“Married.”

 

It made his pulse quicken, his heart leap, his stomach drop down into his toes. It made the world very nearly tilt, it threw him into full alertness while dragging his brain away from the world around him and into his thoughts.

 

“Married.”

 

Scout was jumping rope a short distance away from where Sniper was lounged, his face set in determination. He’d been at it for a while, and showed no signs of stopping, or of fatigue. It would be hard to tell that he was even working out if not for his quickened (but even) breathing and the flush on his face.

 

“Married.”

 

The previous night and that morning, Sniper had been suddenly so sharply, so keenly aware of the domesticity of him and Scout’s living situation in a way that he hadn’t previously been. Was Scout just being friendly with him? Was Scout ever this friendly with anyone else? Was it just that thing Scout had said, about how he didn’t think the rest of the team liked him? Was Scout only being this nice because he thought nobody else would have him?

 

“Married.”

 

Sniper took a swig from the now-lukewarm bottle of beer and allowed himself a moment to indulge and really consider the word.

 

Truth be told, Sniper had never considered marriage. Hadn’t thought of himself of the “marrying type”. More than just never having been in a good enough relationship to even begin to _think_  about marriage, he didn’t know if he could handle it. Pickett fences and two-and-a-half kids never appealed to him. Maybe that was just because he never found someone who he thought he could do the whole “domestic” thing with. Maybe because he’d already long since figured he’d ruined that prospect for himself by becoming a hired killer.

 

Scout was a hired killer, too, though.

 

He took another swig and squeezed his eyes shut hard.

 

He shouldn’t be thinking about this. He and Scout weren’t dating. Scout might not even like him. Sure, Scout likes blokes as well as ladies, and had held his hand on more than one occasion when he didn’t strictly need to, and sure did like talking to him a lot, and now they were sharing a bed...

 

But was any of that concrete enough proof to even begin to express interest in Scout?

 

“Bugger,” Sniper murmured.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

For Scout, at least in terms of how he felt about Sniper, it was all relatively straightforward.

 

He just didn’t think about it.

 

When Sniper first took hold of his hand of his own volition, and when he tracked down Scout after he got lost, and the first morning he woke up after they started sharing a bed, and when he kissed him before the operation—those would all be perfectly reasonable times to realize he was in love. And maybe he’d been in love for a while already before he realized it, and just stubbornly refused to think about it, but regardless, Scout just never really had the conversation with himself on what his feelings for Sniper were.

 

Instead, he came to terms with it during a phone call a few days after the whole mess was over.

 

“Hey, Tony,” he said cheerfully once he got a greeting, leaned against the pole on which the telephone was mounted about a half a mile out from base. “What’s up?”

 

“Oh, “what’s up”, he asks me—“ Tony said sarcastically. “What’s up is the fact that you ain’t called for almost a month. You had to hear the baby announcement through _Ma_  instead’a through _me_.”

 

“Some stuff happened,” Scout defended, kicking a rock away from the base of the pole. “And it’s all good now, but I just haven’t had the time to call, alright?”

 

“Yeah, you get to use the “I didn’t have time” excuse after _your_  first few kids, Shrimp.”

 

Scout laughed at that.

 

“Hey, speakin’ of. You mentioned on a phone call with Ma that you’ve been hangin’ out with someone a lot lately. That in a friend way? Because she talked about it for like twenty minutes an’ she’s probably _dyin’_  to know.”

 

“Uhh... not in a friend way, technically exactly,” Scout said, voice tentative.

 

“Ohhhhh my god my baby brother is datin’ again.” Scout heard him pull the phone from his ear, the next sentence shouted off elsewhere. “Yo, Theresa! Call the papers! Jeremy’s datin’ again!”

 

“Don’t call the papers, that’d give the wrong idea, I’d get like, swarmed with ladies,” Scout said, and Tony barked a laugh.

 

“Yeah, sure thing. Yo, I need details _five minutes ago_. How serious is your condition, do you gotta go to the doctor?”

 

Scout sighed, but supplied the line anyways, albeit flatly. “Well gosh, Tony, what doctor could you possibly be talkin’—“

 

“The _love doctor!”_ Tony whooped from the other end of the line.

 

“You’re married. Your wife likes you usin’ that line?” Scout asked dryly.

 

“She’s a real doctor, so she thinks it’s funny,” Tony said, settling down a bit. “Nah, seriously. I need details.”

 

“Uh... okay, so we’ve been a thing for a little while now, but I’ve known him for a little longer,” Scout started.

 

“Uh-huh. Coworker, then?”

 

“Yeah.” A pause. “You better keep this from the rest’a the guys, by the way. I don’t want anyone gettin’ their hopes up for a wedding by next week.”

 

“When on _earth_  in my _whole life_  have I _ever_  betrayed the trust of you, my favorite baby brother—“

 

“Ricky Hayes, freshman year,” Scout replied before he could finish talking.

 

“That was _once!_  I was a dumb kid!” Tony said defensively after a pause.

 

“You’re still a dumb kid.”

 

“Wow, I, uh, I love when my little brother calls me from all the way across the country. It’s always the freakin’ highlight of my month.”

 

“Freakin’?”

 

“The girls are playing dolls like ten feet away. Stop changin’ the subject.”

 

Scout sighed, caught. “Alright, fine. I, uh, I just know that he’s a really great guy and I like ‘im a lot an’ I want this relationship to work out for goddamn once. I don’t wanna jinx it by spilling too much or getting everyone all hyped. So you, as one of my top seven favorite brothers, gotta keep _quiet_  about this, okay?”

 

“I will. Any and all discussion of your new boy stays between you and your favorite brother.”

 

“Your words, not mine,” Scout said. That got a laugh again.

 

There was a pause. Scout scuffed his feet on the sand underfoot.

 

“Forreal. It’s been a while since you dated,” Tony said.

 

“I mean, I moved, an’ this job doesn’t really make dating easy, y’know?”

 

“Buddy, you had like two years to be on the market before you picked up the job.”

 

Scout scuffed his feet on the sand underfoot.

 

Tony spoke again after a few moments of silence. “I dunno, I’m just... I dunno.”

 

“Me neither,” Scout said quietly.

 

“I’m just wonderin’ what makes this guy special enough to be the first person you’ve dated in like... five years.”

 

“Hey, now. He’s a good one,” Scout said, a little sheepish.

 

“You kissed?”

 

“Gross, and yes,” Scout replied.

 

“Oh, shut up “gross”. Remember what you said to Theresa when you found out we were havin’ a kid?”

 

“I apologized,” Scout said with a sigh.

 

“Just sayin’!” Tony laughed. A pause. “...Uh, I don’t wanna be like, weird overbearing brother here, but, you had the “what are we” talk yet?”

 

“Yeah,” Scout said, nodding despite the fact that Tony couldn’t see him. “Boyfriends. And uh, mutually exclusive, for what it’s worth.”

 

“Cool.” Another pause. “...You love ‘im?”

 

“...Yeah,” Scout said in the same moment that he realized it. “Yeah. I do.”

 

There was a beat of pause.

 

“Shit,” Scout said, “I really do.”

 

“This time will work out, kiddo,” Tony said, voice comforting even from the other side of the continent. “You’re gonna be okay.”

 

“I hope so,” Scout breathed, a half-laugh.

 

“You _will_.”

 

“I... god. I hope so.”

 

A pause.

 

“Think, uh...” Tony tried, trailed, tried again. “Think you’ll ever tell ‘im?”

 

“I dunno. It’s... to be fair, some of the... _stuff_  that happened was, uh. A little heavy. So we’ve already kinda been through it. So I don’t think it’ll go like, uh. Like that other time.”

 

“I’m never gonna stop bein’ mad at that girl,” Tony said matter-of-factly.

 

“Tony,” Scout scolded. “It wasn’t her fault.”

 

“I’m still mad.”

 

“She didn’t do nothin’, she handled it the right way.”

 

“I’m still mad.”

 

“I forgave her. She didn’t wanna hurt me, neither.”

 

“Yeah, but it still freakin’ hurt, didn’t it?” Tony said sharply, and Scout sighed, irritated. “She should’ve been nicer about it.”

 

“She _was_  nice about it.”

 

“How many months, Shrimp, how many?”

 

“ _Tony_ ,” Scout said sharply. “I’m _over it_.”

 

“That why you’re scared to tell ‘im? Because you’re so over it?” Tony snarked.

 

“Oh, fuck off,” Scout said, and paused with the rest of his sentence as he heard a voice in the background saying something.

 

“I _am_  being nice, I just wanna keep my brother safe,” Tony said, not to Scout. Something else was said, and after a second Tony sighed. A pause. “...You still there?”

 

“Yeah,” Scout mumbled.

 

“I... my point is that... you deserve better than what happened last time, and this one will be fine,” Tony said. “And... I’m sorry for... y’know.”

 

“I know,” Scout murmured, and with his next exhale, the last of his annoyance melted away.

 

“...Well, now that the tone is dead, wanna talk to your nieces?” Tony asked hopefully, and Scout laughed.

 

“Sure thing.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[yeah theyre in love]]


	4. A Little Earlier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[this is the closest thing to a prequel to RB that you're gonna get because prequels as a concept just confuse me. this takes place a short period of time before chapter one of RB, somewhere between a few weeks and a few months
> 
> the alt/working title that doesn't match with the theme i have going was "Icarus"]]

 

 

There was just something about him.

 

Sniper watched curiously as Scout darted past the door to the common area for the fifth time in three minutes, holding yet another package. Apparently it was mail day, not a date marked on calendars so much as randomly popping up whenever there were enough packages for the Administrator to bother sending in. After the first few mail days, when Spy was caught snooping through someone’s boxes, Scout had taken it upon himself to become the team’s delivery boy, getting the packages to their recipients as quickly as possible to give Spy no time to pry.

 

Little facts like that, Sniper thought. Scout was just built out of tiny little facts like that. And those little facts never really made a full picture, and they usually conflicted, and sometimes the team wasn’t even sure if those facts were true, or just ascended rumor.

 

Why did he catch Sniper’s attention? Sniper wasn’t sure.

 

The first time he realized he was paying too much attention to Scout, it was... god, when even was that?

 

It was during a team meal. There were always a few conversations going on at once, which was both good and bad—bad in that it was a lot of noise and a lot of people-sounds, which Sniper wasn’t a fan of, but good in that he could pretend to be invested in any conversation and nobody would pay attention to him. He preferred to be out of the spotlight.

 

Scout was his opposite in that regard. He was in the middle of telling some story about a brother and girlfriend, and somehow Sniper found himself listening to it. Not just quietly gulping down food so he could get away—actually listening.

 

And once he started actually listening, he was just a little fascinated.

 

Because the way Scout talked was so odd.

 

Not in a rude way—it was just a very particular manner of speaking that Sniper was fairly sure he’d never heard before. Scout would talk himself in loops and circles, taking tangents and having to jump back in the story to finish a point and somehow managing to keep a mental tally of all the branches he had stopped in the middle of. Sniper had a feeling that if someone listening to him zoned out for any more than five sentences, he would sound downright incoherent. His stories ran together and wove through each other, and every point connected to three more, and Scout seemed determined—however foolishly—to finish each and every one of them.

 

Suddenly Sniper was among the last at the table, with Soldier and Demo arguing at the other end as Scout animatedly explained something to him.

 

He managed to detach himself eventually, picking up his plate and going off on his merry way, but he did wonder to himself just how long he would’ve sat there if he hadn’t noticed that everyone else had already left.

 

After that, he was paying attention more, and with paying attention more, he noticed more, which made him want to pay attention. It was a self-feeding cycle of sorts, he was aware. Like a snake eating its own tail.

 

“Ouroboros,” Sniper murmured once, quietly into his coffee mug while Scout inhaled his stupidly sugary cereal down the table.

 

“Huh?” Scout asked, looking up at him.

 

“Hmm? Uh. Nothin’,” Sniper murmured, still half-asleep. Scout shrugged and continued shoveling down food. “Why do you eat that?”

 

“Tastes good,” Scout said simply.

 

“Aren’t it bad for you?”

 

“Hey, I’m on this earth for a good time, not a long time,” Scout joked.

 

Sniper didn’t reply to that, and after a moment, Scout’s expression fell, and he ducked back into his bowl.

 

Scout liked to push limits, especially in regards to safety. Adrenaline junkie, as Sniper’s mum would’ve called it. Fuckin’ loon, his dad would’ve called it. Scout-ish-ness, the team sometimes called it. Sniper didn’t have a name for it yet, but he was working on it.

 

If there was ever a sudden, spontaneous form of entertainment on base, Scout was either the cause or the first to sign up. Not even necessarily because he was the most desperate for distraction—more because he wanted to spend time with other people, something else that Sniper didn’t get. Sniper couldn’t get _away_  from people fast enough, but Scout actively sought out interactions, and it was the strangest thing. He was desperate to talk to people, all the time, apparently desperate enough that he even tried talking to Sniper sometimes.

 

“How long have you smoked for?” he asked once, standing a few feet away from Sniper, mimicking his pose leaned against the rickety wooden wall, a freshly unwrapped stick of chewing gum between his teeth rather than a freshly lit cigarette.

 

Sniper paused, not because he didn’t remember the answer, but because he didn’t know how best to answer. “Since I was seventeen,” he said. “An’ been tryin’ to quit since I was nineteen.”

 

“Why?” Scout asked, looking him in the eye like normal people probably do. People who aren’t freaked out by social situations. People unlike Sniper.

 

“Because the smell sticks to you, an’ the habit is expensive, an’ it’ll ruin your voice,” Sniper answered, eyes trained on the horizon line.

 

Scout laughed. “Nah, I meant ‘why do you smoke’,” he clarified.

 

“...Nerves,” Sniper settled on, not too revealing but not dodging the question. He glanced at Scout. “An’ dad chewed tobacco, I wanted to know what the fuss was about.”

 

Scout nodded at that, moving to reload his gun, fingers moving quickly. “I mean, the voice thing is arguable,” he said, half to himself. Sniper wasn’t sure he heard right.

 

“Huh?” Sniper asked intelligently.

 

“You said like, it’ll wreck your voice. But you’ve been smokin’ for like... what, nine years, then?” Scout asked, glancing back up at Sniper.

 

“...Eleven,” Sniper corrected.

 

“Aren’t you like, almost twenty-nine?” Scout asked, frowning down at his scattergun as he worked it over.

 

“How’d you know that?” Sniper challenged. “An’ more importantly, how’d you get the math wrong?”

 

Scout grinned lopsidedly, looking up at him again. “I dunno,” he shrugged, and his eyes held the whole sky in them.

 

Sniper wasn’t sure why Scout bothered. Sniper had never been a people person in his life, and if the runner kept going like this he’d just get his hopes up for nothing. What was Scout trying to do, treating him like a regular teammate? What was he getting at? What was the _catch?_

 

After all, it wasn’t like Scout treated everyone else on the team like that. The only other people on the team that he was so nice to were Demo or Pyro, or on a good day maybe Engie. He was always a bit sharp with their Soldier or Heavy, and kind of distant from Medic. And there aren’t many words to accurately describe the way he and Spy interact.

 

“Venomous,” Sniper said quietly to himself, glancing up from the card game he was attempting with Pyro towards where Scout and Spy were, Scout steadily cranking up the radio and Spy always cranking it back down a few seconds later pointedly with the hand not holding his book. Pyro glanced up at him when he spoke, then followed his gaze, and nodded solemnly. Old Maid was the only game he could think of off the top of his head to play with Pyro, and it was going well thus far, at least.

 

Spy cranked down the radio. Scout cranked it up again. Spy cranked it down. Scout cranked it up.

 

“Bit childish, s’well,” Sniper said, despite a stab of guilt in his chest over speaking ill of someone else. “There’s... a word. I’ll think of it.”

 

He and Pyro both jolted to attention at the sound of shattering glass, heads whipping around.

 

Spy sighed heavily, looking down with distain at the glass that had apparently just been knocked from the table before the couch and onto the floor. Perhaps when he’d kicked his feet up, Sniper deduced, looking over the scene of the crime.

 

Scout began a slow clap after a second of quiet in the room, and Spy glared daggers even as he got to his feet and moved to the kitchen. “Nice,” Scout said.

 

“Do not start with me,” Spy warned, and returned with a hand broom and dust pan to sweep up the glass.

 

“You really are campaigning for “Moron Of The Year”, huh?” Scout asked, cranking up the volume of the radio slightly now that Spy was too preoccupied to turn it down again.

 

“As reigning champion, does that make you nervous?” Spy asked coolly, not looking up from his task.

 

Scout bristled, but for whatever reason, he didn’t launch into a fight. Something made him just sink lower in his seat instead, glaring into empty space. He stopped cranking up the radio.

 

It was odd catching Scout when he was in his own head. It was like watching a movie without the sound on—you could get a sense of what was going on, but not completely. Not really. Sniper noticed it more, now that Scout didn’t seem to hesitate to move into the empty space around Sniper. Now that he knew Sniper wouldn’t get mad at him.

 

Sometimes, Sniper would ask what he was thinking about. When Scout was scraping caked-on mud and pebbles from the soles of his shoes and he would suddenly start grinning to himself, or when he would be bobbing his head despite there being no music playing, or when he would be mouthing something to himself as he made tiny, almost-imperceptible gestures with his fingers on the tabletop when nobody was looking. That’s how Scout started telling him dumb jokes he’d heard on the radio, or reccomending him music, or trying to get help for remembering the name of that one girl who was in a lot of movies with Rock Hudson as a love interest or something, with the blond hair (as Scout would blurt out ten minutes later, her name was Doris Day).

 

But then one day, he saw Scout sitting between matches, looking at his pistol, turning it over in his hands, and frowning. Not the same frown as when he couldn’t figure out what day of the week it was—a different one. A more solemn one. One that, for whatever reason, made Scout look his age. Made the sky that occupied the space around his pupils turn greyer, flatter. Emptier.

 

It was... a bit unnerving to look at. Sniper decided instantly that he didn’t like it. And for whatever reason, he forgot to be scared of speaking for a moment, forgot to be nervous around people, because this wasn’t people, it was just Scout.

 

“What’re you thinkin’ about?” Sniper asked, like he occasionally did now.

 

Scout wasn’t looking at him. For some reason, Sniper’s eyes were drawn to the steady movements of his torso as he breathed.

 

Then Scout’s head turned, looking at Sniper, then back down at the gun in his hands. He moved to hold it correctly, almost wincing. He was chewing at his lips.

 

“Snipes, are...” he started to ask, then stopped again. Paused. “Why did you get hired here?”

 

Sniper considered the question. “I’d taken a few contracts in the city in Australia—Sydney—knocked out some real nasty blokes that wanted to be big-shots. Apparently that just so happened to be convenient for a Mr. Saxton Hale, and he had some folks look into me, and I got hired here.”

 

“Why’d you take the job?” Scout asked next.

 

“Either I point a gun at someone in Oz and get arrested, or I point a gun at someone here and get promised time to go home for the holidays. Just safer, more reliable. An’... further away,” Sniper said.

 

Scout was looking off again. Sniper followed his gaze, and his eyes landed on a wall with the RED logo sprayed onto it, covered in bullet holes and shoddy patch jobs.

 

“You?” Sniper finally asked.

 

Scout shook his head, looked at his shoes. “I... I dunno. Pays good, I don’t really gotta hurt anyone, since we can’t actually die or anythin’, right?” Scout said, and it sounded almost like a question. His voice sounded a bit thin. His eyes still looked a little empty. “I, I’m sorry for interrogating you or whatever. Didn’t mean to, y’know. Launch you into a game of twenty questions or anythin’.”

 

Sniper shrugged. “Eh. S’not bad questions,” he said.

 

Scout didn’t say anything.

 

“What’re you thinkin’ about?” Sniper asked again.

 

Scout didn’t say anything. He looked up at the far wall.

 

“Somethin’ is eating you, mate. I can tell,” Sniper said, pushing only because the sight of Scout like this was doing something awful to his lungs.

 

Scout finally looked at him, and his eyes were a little cloudy. Sniper hated it. “Tellin’ you would involve another question,” he murmured, almost apologetically.

 

“Then ask,” Sniper encouraged.

 

Scout looked down at his own gun. One thing Scout did when he was thinking was chew his lip, picking at small wounds with his teeth maybe, or just scraping over the skin. Maybe it was a subconscious thing, or maybe just a bad habit in the same vein as chewing one's nails might be. Either way, just then it seemed like Scout had chewed his lip to bits. It was pock-marked with tiny wounds, and probably hurt, but Scout didn't seem to notice just then. He chewed. He thought.

 

“We’re the good guys...” he murmured, voice quiet, air thick, gun held loose in his fingers, “...right?”

 

Sniper didn’t know.

 

Once, Sniper heard Demo say, jokingly and teasingly, with a well-placed elbow, that Scout was the dumb one. Jokingly, and in the same breath that he called himself a lunatic drunk and Heavy a half-man, half-bear. Jokingly. But something about that had made Sniper frown, made him pause, look over. Scout had crowed out a defense, elbowing Demo right back, clearly not offended, but... it didn’t sit right with Sniper.

 

Scout wasn’t dumb, he wanted to say.

 

Scout was just smart about different things, he wanted to say.

 

Scout could be smart if he wanted, he wanted to say.

 

Scout wasn’t the dumb one, _Sniper_ was, he wanted to say.

 

That... didn’t mean Scout never did dumb things, of course.

 

The one that would always come to mind when Sniper thought of dumb decisions that Scout made was the time he’d dashed into Sniper’s nest and made Sniper an accomplice to a stupid plan.

 

Sniper had Scout face to the wall, arm yanked up behind his back with his kukri poised between his shoulder blades, within an instant of him moving into the space. The alarmed, borderline squeaking shout Scout gave would’ve been proof of his identity even if the sharp pinch on his arm wasn’t.

 

Sniper released him, thoroughly confused. “Mate, what are you doin’ up here? Don’t y’got a job out there on th’front line?” he asked.

 

“Yeah, but I had an idea,” Scout replied, wincing as he shook out the arm Sniper had used to throw him into the wall. “And I need to get through your window.”

 

Sniper stared at him for a second, uncomprehending. “Whot?” he finally asked.

 

Scout sighed dramatically, then rattled out an explanation at a mile a minute. “On the outside part of the shack on the left and back part from where the window is there’s a little tiny ledge that I might be able to get around on because I need to get on top of a place that I can’t get to since I can’t rocket jump like Cyclops or Helmet-Head, and apparently they’re both too damn busy to worry about the other Soldier up there rainin’ fire down on the rest of us and killin’ Doc like five times and me like four. If I just knock ‘im down once he might fuck off but this is the only way I’ve figured out that might be able to get me there.”

 

Sniper stared for one, two, three heartbeats. “You can’t,” he finally said.

 

“Why not?” Scout asked, crossing his arms.

 

“The other Sniper would kill you. You’ll have to wait until I take ‘im out, at least. Then you’d need to hope the other bastard doesn’t see you, and that you don’t fall trying to get there. Mate, there’s no way it’d work.”

 

“Are you absolutely positive?” Scout asked, hands on his hips.

 

“...Well, no, but—“

 

“Then the hell are you waitin’ for?! Shoot that other asshole so I can get a move on!”

 

For whatever reason, Sniper complied, and even helped move a crate so Scout could quickly climb through the window.

 

There was nowhere to stand outside the window. He was basically just hanging on with the strength of his arms and one foot on the window sill. Sniper leaned out and looked for the ledge Scout was talking about. It was a good distance away, certainly pushing the boundaries of what even Scout could jump, and the foothold looked no thicker than a quarter.

 

“There’s absolutely no bloody way,” Sniper said, eyebrows furrowed. “Don’t be a lunatic. Just ask Soldier t'help again.”

 

“I can do this, I can do basically anythin’, remember? Gravity ain’t got nothin’ on me,” Scout said with a grin, and he took a quick breath, and in one movement, he launched himself.

 

Sniper’s heart soared when he saw Scout wedge his toe onto the impossibly tiny space, and stopped when the momentum caused it to slip right off.

 

In a moment, Scout was half-crouched, having barely caught himself with his other foot, gripping at the worn wood wall with all his might, white as a sheet and eyes wide.

 

And then, the absolute madman _laughed_.

 

“Told you!” he tried to chime, but his voice was wobbly, and fractured dead in the middle. “Gravity can’t stop me!”

 

And then he was moving much faster than anyone would recommend as he crept along the ledge and out of sight, off to the last step of his plan.

 

A few moments later, Sniper would hear the surprised cry of the enemy Soldier, and Scout whooping and cheering, and Medic yelling at him to get down from there before he busted his head open and broke his legs.

 

“Lunatic,” Sniper managed, shaking his head with awe.

 

Untouchable, Scout was. The hero of his own story. Good luck at the strangest possible times, and bad luck for the rest. Always pushing limits, always trying the more ridiculous ideas because it’ll _probably_  fail, but what if it didn’t?

 

Sniper always wondered what kind of loon would climb Mount Everest “because it was there”. He was starting to realize that he already knew that sort of loon.

 

He wondered, sometimes, watching the latest plan unfold, whether Scout would learn to quit. Learn his limits. Whether he would stop such ridiculous shenanigans if he didn’t have Respawn and Medic’s healing gun. Whether he would go through with mad plans if he wasn’t invincible. Something told him that yes, he would. Something told him that one day, maybe years down the road, maybe a week from then, Scout would die as he lived—in an impulsive whim that too quickly turned sour.

 

A dark thought. Sniper shook it away.

 

There was something fascinating, though, about watching Scout tumbling into foolish situation after foolish situation. Like a bird flapping against a screen window. Like a moth beating against a lightbulb. Like a dog dashing into a glass door. Like refilling a pot with water each time it boils over. An inevitability. A futility. Yet somehow, there was something noble about it. As if maybe this would be the time that it works out. As if maybe this time he’ll be lucky. Scout really does always seem to think so—that or he just truly doesn’t remember the lessons the world had tried to teach him in the past with each catastrophic failure. Always finding a challenge, always taking it. “Because it’s there,”—George Mallory was the bloke who said that, apparently. Sniper had looked it up. It was just so horribly human, the whole concept that Scout embodied, human in a way that doesn't belong in a war zone, in a way that doesn't even belong in a newspaper. Scout was like an urban legend, a story passed down on playgrounds. It was ridiculous. It was miraculous.

 

“Icarus,” Sniper murmured, watching Scout eye up the face of one of the cliffs as the younger man tightened his shoelaces.

 

“Huh?” Scout asked, looking up at Sniper, eyes alight like the sky of a clear day mid-September. There was still the lingering burn of him having spotted a challenge that few would stand themselves up against, there in his features. Adrenaline, maybe. Youth, maybe. Humanity, maybe.

 

“I said “watch it, Icarus”,” Sniper lied, pushing his sunglasses up his nose.

 

Scout grinned. “My wings don’t burn,” he joked back, moving on to his left shoe.

 

“And what if they do?” Sniper asked.

 

Scout tilted his head up, looked past the cliffs, squinted up at where the sun sat so far above. He chewed his gum, chewed his lip, chewed his words.

 

“It’ll be one hell of a fall,” he said, and looked at Sniper, and smiled, “don’t you think?”

 

Sniper’s heart jumped like missing a step, like sudden turbulence, like the downward slope of a rollercoaster. And in that moment, he realized Scout wasn’t the one with wax wings. _Sniper_  was the Icarus, and that made Scout the sun.

 

“Yeah,” Sniper said, looking at the sky.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[i have fun writing sniper's POV. i also have a job now tho so. yeah]]


	5. A Little Soft

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[angst?? in my good good speeding bullet fanfiction?? its more likely than you think. this takes place a good few months post-RB]]

 

 

Scout liked to be held.

 

He was a tactile person by nature, so it wasn’t a surprise that being held was something he liked a whole lot. He did have a preference—he liked sitting in Sniper’s lap, facing perpendicular, because that was the best way to sit so he could just kinda sink into his chest and lay his head on Sniper’s shoulder. But sometimes Sniper was wearing his vest, and the tall part of the collar got in the way, so instead he would just lay face up on Sniper’s lap, his back up and over his legs. But sometimes Sniper complained that he couldn’t feel his toes, so instead he just sat against Sniper’s side, the Aussie’s arm over his shoulder and his own around Sniper’s waist. But sometimes Sniper was using both his hands, so Scout would either just improvise, leaning back-to-back or head in his lap or something, or he would leave Sniper alone to do whatever he was doing, albeit with some pouting.

 

His favorite spot, by far, was just cuddling into Sniper while they were lying down somewhere.

 

Sniper mentioned up front once they started cuddling a lot that he was kinda bony and lanky and his limbs might get in the way, and to just tell him if he needed to move to make Scout more comfortable (and Scout made him promise to do the same). And occasionally, yes, Scout did need to do a bit of shifting around and wiggling to get comfy, but for the most part Scout could handle the fact that Sniper was mostly made of hard edges and planes. He himself was built like that too after all, what with his body’s borderline inability to keep any fat on his bones, his metabolism constantly in overdrive considering the fact that he had square meals and exercised more than regularly. These were the facts of his life. Scout liked cuddling. Sniper was just kinda bony.

 

Until he wasn’t.

 

Scout wasn’t sure when he realized it, or when the change started happening, but one day he climbed into bed, the tiny mattress of the camper necessitating them basically lying half on top of each other, and flopped his arm over Sniper’s stomach, and it occurred to him that it was soft.

 

Sniper was still awake, arms folded under his head, and looked down at him curiously through the meager light of the nearly-pitch space when he started shifting again. He raised his eyebrows at Scout when the smaller moved to hug him around the midsection, cuddling into his stomach, the space covered by a t-shirt only because it was starting to get cold at night in the late fall and beginning hints of winter. “Whot’re you doin’ there?” he asked, a touch hesitant.

 

“Huggin’ you,” Scout replied simply, hugging tighter to demonstrate.

 

“Why?”

 

“Because I’m datin’ you and I’m allowed,” Scout said. “Also, you’re kinda like a pillow now. Gettin’ all soft.”

 

Sniper, all at once, went tense. Scout lifted his head to shoot him a curious look, nearly in the same moment that Sniper suddenly shifted, moving to pull Scout to lie up near his shoulder again, pulling him close that way instead, albeit with stilted motions.

 

“Well,” Sniper said, and didn’t finish his sentence. Instead, they both drifted off a short time later despite a feeling of vague unplaceable unease over both of them—but for different reasons.

 

 

* * *

 

 

A few days later, Scout had basically forgotten about the incident, passed it off as Sniper having another situation where he felt weird all of a sudden; it wasn’t uncommon for those situations to happen. Then it was brought into sharp relief again, and he started wondering if he was missing something.

 

Sniper was always a bit of a grump in the morning, but he never got _cold_  with Scout, at most he would get frustrated and cut him off to say so. And when Sniper was annoyed, something that usually genuinely helped was just... closeness. So after Sniper sighed at a dumb offhanded joke rather than huffing his half-laugh, Scout got up to try that.

 

Sniper was facing the counter, sorting through the mess of snack-like breakfast foods they had and looking for the kind he liked the most, and Scout pulled one of the safe, old, reliable moves that never failed to help Sniper wake up. He moved to stand just behind Sniper, wrapping arms around his middle, hugging him and burying his face into the taller’s neck and upper back.

 

Sniper did relax against him, some tension leaving his shoulders, even if he continued silently sorting through the individually-wrapped packages instead of giving Scout his full attention. Scout half-nuzzled Sniper, holding ever so slightly tighter, one hand moving slightly to grip more at his stomach, a bit idly fascinated with the small amount of new squish there.

 

And all at once, something shifted in the familiar pattern, and Sniper was more tense than he had been before. Sniper shifted his arms in such a way that Scout pulled back to avoid his elbows, used to maneuvering both of them in the small space, and Scout decided to just sit back down with his own food since it seemed like Sniper was focused on the breakfast situation anyways.

 

Two thoughts occurred to him later, as he thought over the encounter: first, that maybe Sniper moving in that way and causing him to back off hadn’t been a simple coincidence. And second, Sniper only ate one small package rather than three for breakfast. He was fairly sure the first one was more important.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was a week of similar encounters, every other day or so Sniper suddenly shifting to move Scout aside or away when he tried to be close. It instilled a particular kind of terror in Scout, who remembered failing to notice similar signs like that in his last relationship before it had ended catastrophically. He tried to break from that pattern, deciding that maybe Sniper was just getting tired of Scout being so clingy all the time and maybe he just needed some breathing room.

 

Scout spent less time around Sniper, taking slightly longer runs and hanging out separate from him to give him space, not forcing him to go to breakfast (although he still gently nagged Sniper about the most important meal of the day), or other meals with the team since he wasn’t ever a huge fan of them anyways. For the first time in a while, they ended up sleeping separately for a night, then two, then three, each confined to their own room. He stopped pestering Sniper constantly with questions or stories that he couldn’t remember if he’d told already or just whatever came to mind. Most importantly, Scout stopped being so cuddly, choosing to be next to Sniper like a normal person instead of on his lap or shoulder or chest.

 

It was on the fourth night in six days that they slept in separate rooms that Sniper brought it up, even if it was in his own way.

 

It was late when Scout got the knock on his door, and he was still awake, having some issues trying to drift off. He never did sleep all that well when he was the only person in the room, a carry-over from sharing a room with at least one brother his whole life until he was about twenty. But he cared more about keeping Sniper happy than losing a bit of sleep. Then came the knock, familiar. He sat up just as the door opened just a bit, Sniper peeking his head through sheepishly.

 

“M’sorry, didn’t mean t’wake you,” he murmured when his eyes adjusted to the relative darkness of the room. Scout just shrugged, moving over in his bed to allow Sniper room.

 

“Can’t sleep?” he asked, and felt smug, and felt extremely guilty for feeling smug.

 

Sniper nodded, and sat on the edge of the bed to pull off his boots, as well as the coat he’d worn to walk over, stripping down to the undershirt and sleep pants that usually made up his pajamas. “M’sorry,” he said again, voice a mumble.

 

“For?” Scout asked, a spark of hope alighting in his chest.

 

“Showin’ up like this in th’middle of the bloody night,” Sniper clarified.

 

And there was that spark of hope, sizzling out and dying. “Oh. It’s fine, I’ve told you a million times that you can come in here whenever,” Scout said, closing his eyes and trying to relax despite the unease that settled between them like a brick wall.

 

Then Sniper was moving to get under the covers, and Scout’s bed was slightly larger, and had room for both of them to lie semi-comfortably without getting too far in each other’s personal space, so Scout made room, and half-curled on his side facing the other man, and tried to fall asleep, the task instantly made easier by the presence of another breathing form so close by.

 

And Scout definitely wasn’t a sleep-cuddler, no sir, but at some point he just mysteriously ended up curling against Sniper instead of leaving that meager space between them. And he’d settled one of his legs with the other man’s, and an arm over his middle, and his head against Sniper’s arm, and all at once, in the same sort of jolting motion that had RED or BLU mercenaries jumping out of the way of attacks they hadn’t consciously noticed yet, Scout was pushed away, and snapped awake because of it.

 

And Sniper looked surprised with himself about it, and Scout felt that surprise too, coupled with hurt and dismay and betrayal that he apparently couldn’t hide quickly enough judging by the sudden presence of guilt on Sniper’s face. And Sniper looked like he wanted to say something, do something, one hand half-extended and paused in the air, but Scout turned away before he could, facing the wall instead of his boyfriend, arms curled around himself, trying to ignore the sudden inexplicable feeling that he wasn’t welcome here on his own mattress.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Love,” came a low, gentle voice that brought a little spark of happy familiarity to the inside of Scout’s lungs, making him blink his eyes open.

 

He processed first that he was in his room in the base, which was the first clue, because that was a bit uncommon these days. He processed then that he was awfully tired, meaning he’d been up later than usual, which was the second clue. And lastly, he felt that he was alone on the mattress, which brought the final piece to fall into place, squashing out that pleasant feeling with lethal efficiency.

 

“Hmm?” he hummed, feigning more tiredness than he actually felt (even if it was already an unusually high amount), not prepared to start vocalizing the miasma of negative emotions churning through his gut.

 

“S’morning, you gotta get up.”

 

Scout very much didn’t want to get up. Not when he knew he would be spending the day carefully tiptoeing around the person he supposedly trusted most, making sure not to get too terribly close lest he get pushed away again, physically _or_  emotionally. Not when he was already exhausted by it, already wanting to curl up and call it a day.

 

Was this how Sniper usually felt in the mornings? Scout was starting to sympathize with the chronically late riser. Except not too much, because Scout was still ticked.

 

“Maybe I don’t wanna,” he said instead of any of that.

 

“You gotta,” Sniper said patiently, leaning into Scout’s view when Scout didn’t look up at him, eyebrows drawn together, apparently noticing that something _just might be wrong maybe_.

 

“Why?” he asked, tone sharp, betraying his wakefulness, and Sniper slowly recoiled, clearly surprised.

 

“...Love, I—“ Sniper said, but that first word didn’t just roll off his tongue like it had done not even two weeks prior, now tripping from his mouth and landing just a bit too flat in the air between them, and that’s what made Scout snap out the next words.

 

“What did I _do_ _?!”_ he suddenly barked, curling in a bit further on himself from the force of it, eyes crunching closed, trying to hold back frustration even now.

 

“Wh-whot?” Sniper stuttered, surprised.

 

“You heard me,” Scout snarked, gripping the blanket too tightly. “What the fuck did I do? Because I’m just... just fuckin’ _tell me_ , okay? I can’t read your mind, I don’t know what I did to make you act all weird.”

 

Sniper stumbled through a few mismatched syllables, clearly confused. Scout barreled on despite himself.

 

“If you’re mad at me, you gotta tell me so I can fix it. Did I do something? Is it that I _didn’t_  do something that I was _supposed_  to do? Did I forget something important? Because I seriously don’t know what happened, I haven’t done anything new or weird, and I’m pretty sure I ain’t said anything weird either,” Scout gushed, words falling freely.

 

Another beginning of a word from Sniper, only to stall somewhere between his teeth and his lips.

 

“I mean, fuck, is this—is—I—are—“ Scout pulled the blanket up over his head now, trying to hide the furious tears that he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop if he said this next sentence. “Is this just _it?_ Are you just tired of me? Do you just not like me anymore? If that’s it, just fuckin’—just fuckin’ _say_  it, okay? Because I can’t stand this tiptoeing guarded _bullshit_.” And his voice was croaking and cracking there at the end as his half-forged fury started burning into dismay instead. “Is that it? Is—is _this_  it?”

 

“ _No_ ,” Sniper said with a ferocity that pulled Scout from within the nauseating tumble of his own terrified head. “No, that’s not it, you haven’t done anything, and I still like you, far more than you can ever know. You’re—“

 

And there was a stall, an inhale, and the next words fell shaky in a way that confessed truth.

 

“You’re the most important person in the _world_  to me,” Sniper said. “You didn’t do anything wrong, love, I swear.”

 

“Then _what?!”_ Scout cried, surprised at himself for the fiery anger still rolling through his system after his worst fear was banished.

 

“I’ve just felt... off,” Sniper tried, too little and far too late, and he seemed to sense it, stumbling through syllables again for a few moments. “I mean—I just—I’ve felt off an’ weird an’ bad.”

 

“What do you _mean_?” Scout demanded into a bundle of blankets clutched angrily at his face, trying to muffle himself as his voice rose to nearly a yell.

 

“I don’t know!” Sniper replied before he could think about it.

 

And that was enough, and Scout shoved the blankets away, suddenly too hot, and he grabbed the pillow and buried his face into it as hard as he could and he _screamed_.

 

By the end of five seconds, nearly all the anger was out of his system, leaving him to fall silent and restless and upset, but his blood no longer boiling.

 

He didn’t sit up, though. He just kept his face in the pillow, waiting either for Sniper to say something or for himself to suffocate on the pillow, whichever came first. Most likely the first one, despite what he feared still in the awful corner of his mind that always seemed to have something to say. He waited for Sniper to speak. To call him a baby, perhaps, for throwing a tantrum like he was. Wouldn’t be the first time. To laugh at him for such a display, also not uncommon. To call him a lunatic maybe, to say that actually, maybe Scout had hit it on the head earlier with the “tired of him” thing, because this whole conversation was, in fact, rather exhausting.

 

That’d been a bit of a recurring theme, too. Scout’s eyes stung.

 

But instead, silence stretched between them. Instead, that upset fell into a simmer as well, that restlessness melting, and gloom settled heavy over him, providing him a lovely desolation to wallow in as his lungs began protesting the presence of a pillow disallowing him important things such as air.

 

Then Sniper was prodding at his shoulder, pushing at it, a signal Scout now knew meant that Sniper wanted him to roll over. He didn’t for a few moments, stubborn in his sadness, but finally sniffled, moving to lie face up and giving Sniper a half-hearted glare. Not even half-hearted, quarter-hearted maybe. Tenth-hearted. He was just so _tired_.

 

Then Sniper was pulling him up just slightly so he was almost sitting up, and Sniper kissed him.

 

A smooth slide of lips, but an intense one, Sniper trying to say here what he couldn’t manage with words, and man, it seemed like he had a _lot_  to say. Scout found himself clutching first at Sniper’s shirt with both hands, trying to maintain balance despite the intensity of the kiss that he finally worked up the energy to return. Scout still felt a bit sniffly, and they both still tasted like sleep, but all the same it left his head spinning, the gloom melting away as instead he basked in a feeling he’d been so desperately trying not to miss, to long for. Closeness, and unguardedness, and trust.

 

And he cupped at Sniper’s side and moved his other arm to wrap up over Sniper’s shoulder, and Scout’s blood went cold as he realized that Sniper had tensed again on him.

 

The kiss was broken, dual realization cleaving the moment into two imperfect halves and leaving a sour taste in Scout’s mouth. Sniper looked guilty again. Scout was trying to hold back the irrational anger that was welling up in his chest.

 

“What did I do?” he asked outright.

 

“Whot?” Sniper asked, looking at either of his eyes.

 

“What did I do?” Scout repeated, and this was a cold anger, this time. “Clearly I did something wrong just now. Something you didn’t like. You got all tense on me like before, when you shoved me. What did I do?”

 

“You didn’t—“ Sniper tried.

 

“Don’t fuckin’ _lie_  to my _face_!” Scout snapped, and it was his turn to shove now, sending Sniper a foot or two away down the bed. “Tell me what I did wrong _right fucking now_ , Snipes!”

 

“I feel _gross_ ,” Sniper blurted, and there it was.

 

Silence.

 

“What?” Scout asked, unabashedly confused.

 

Sniper’s hands fidgeted. He moved as if to go back to lying with Scout, but Scout moved as well to maintain the amount of distance between them.

 

“Nuh-uh, you ain’t allowed over here until you explain yourself,” Scout said firmly.

 

Sniper looked like he was in some amount of discomfort. Tough shit, Scout thought to himself, he’d been feeling weird for _weeks_.

 

“I just...” Sniper started, not looking at Scout, instead down at his own hands, eyebrows all drawn together. “I just... I don’t know what you see in me.”

 

Scout felt an interruption trying to bubble forth, and he pushed it down, just letting Sniper talk.

 

“I mean... christ, I’m past my prime here, already more worn down than I ought to be,” he said, voice creaky and strained. “I’m certainly not gonna look any better any time soon. Or ever. An’... god, you’re gonna laugh at me for sayin’ this.”

 

Scout didn’t confirm or deny that fact, even if he wanted to say that no, he wouldn’t laugh.

 

“I just,” Sniper started, and inhaled, and spoke all in a rush, “I’m just feelin’ real gross and unattractive an’ when you get all cuddly sometimes I worry that you’re gonna realize it.”

 

There was something else. He didn’t know how he knew, but Scout was absolutely positive of it—there was _something_  else that Sniper wasn’t telling him. He knew it, and from the guilt in Sniper's expression, he knew Scout knew it, and Scout knew he knew he knew it, all that bullshit. So he waited.

 

“It’s my belly,” he blurted, and there it was.

 

Scout stared at him. Glanced down at his stomach, then back up again. Sniper bent his legs up, crossed his arms over them, an obvious attempt at hiding himself, face going even redder. “What are you talkin’ about?” Scout asked, genuinely confused.

 

“I’ve... fuck, this sounds shallow,” Sniper muttered, scrubbing at his own cheek for a second, unable to meet Scout’s eye. “I’ve put on weight and I don’t like it and I figured you wouldn’t like it either.”

 

“What? I don’t don’t like it,” Scout said, and paused. “Wait. No, I don’t, not like it? Fuck. English sucks. I, it’s not a big deal, is what I mean.”

 

Now they were both confused, apparently, because Sniper was just giving him a puzzled look.

 

“Like, if anything doesn’t you having some fat on your bones just mean you’re eating regularly now? And isn’t that a good thing?” Scout asked, crossing his legs as he settled in for what he assumed would be a whole _talk_. “You told me that one time that you forget to eat a lot, and... like, I’ve basically forced you into a normal sleep schedule and made you start goin’ to meals and stuff. So maybe you’re just goin’ onto a healthy weight or somethin’.”

 

“I dunno about that,” Sniper said hesitantly. “Then why wouldn’t you be the same way?”

 

“Because my whole situation is all fucked up,” Scout chirped, and the concern in Sniper’s expression implied that maybe he shouldn’t have sounded so cheerful about it. “Like, I burn through calories real fast and like, _can’t_  gain any weight, it’s a whole situation an’ stuff. Somethin' about my metalism or somethin'."

 

"Metabolism?" Sniper asked after a second.

 

"Yeah! That! I’ve talked to the Doc about it, it’s like, a _thing_.”

 

“A thing?” Sniper repeated, and the corner of his mouth twitched up.

 

“Yep!” Scout chimed. “Dunno, I got sick as a kid one time and it messed my whole system up I guess. That’s why I always gotta make sure I eat—otherwise I’ll like, waste away and probably straight up die.”

 

And the amusement became concern again. Scout waved it off.

 

“It’s not a big deal, just somethin’ I gotta try an’ remember,” Scout insisted. “Havin’ some fat is the _healthy_  thing, is what I’m sayin’ here. Also, aesthetically? I don’t prefer one or the other between like, thin an’ chubby. They’re both good, both got upsides, y’know? Thin might be the classic look an’ all, but now you’re all huggable. Both are good.”

 

“Really?” Sniper asked, a tiny bit more vulnerable than he usually allowed, even with Scout. “You still like the look’a me?”

 

“Snipes, I like _you_ ,” Scout said with a smile, and Sniper looked relieved and pleased enough with that simple phrase that almost all of the rest of the frustration buried in his subconscious melted away. He opened up his arms, and Sniper took the prompt, moving in and pulling him into an embrace. Within a few moments, they were laid down and cuddled in like they had been normally before everything, and Scout was pretty sure if he was a cat, he’d be purring.

 

Then he laughed a little to himself. The slightest bit of tension in Sniper appeared just then, and he looked up to explain himself.

 

“You’ve gone all soft like, figuratively _and_  literally,” Scout said. “Cold-blooded killer like you, huh? I’ve made you soft.”

 

“Murderer for hire,” Sniper confirmed, carding fingers through the short hair on the back of Scout’s head and kissing him on the tip of his nose. “Best in the business.”

 

“I missed this,” Scout murmured, hugging him closer, letting his eyes fall closed. “I... missed _you_. Don’t do that shit again, yeah? Scared the hell outta me, I thought I was doin’ somethin’ wrong. If somethin’s not good, you can just talk to me about it, okay? I promise.”

 

Sniper hummed in agreement.

 

“An’ if you really hate the gainin’ weight thing, you could always start workin’ out maybe,” Scout suggested, shrugging lightly enough to not dislodge himself. “Exercise helps.”

 

“Love, all due respect, I would literally rather die,” Sniper replied darkly, and Scout laughed.

 

They were quiet for a while, then. Enjoying each other’s presence, and the quiet.

 

“That said, we’re gonna miss breakfast if we don’t hurry up,” Sniper murmured. “We’re half an hour late.”

 

Scout cursed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[dedicating this one to my beta gf who i love and also to blake who i love and also to noc who i love and who also gave me the energy to finish editing this chapter due to kind comments, i love yall send post]]


	6. A Little Redder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[me, looking at the date this was last updated: oh. oh, no. oh that's no good]]

 

 

 

The one thing that Scout had managed to get very good at that the rest of the team couldn’t really compete with (Soldier being the single exception) was following a morning routine. Every morning, he woke up either at sunrise or at 6:30 (whichever case first, but never earlier than 6:00), and got up, brushed his teeth, and went out for a morning jog. By 6:55 he was in the shower, and he was out of the shower and in his uniform by 7:00. He put on sunscreen and headed out, and was at breakfast by 7:05. If they had a mission starting early in the day, or if he was the one cooking according to the base’s chore wheel, he would skip the morning jog, instead headed directly to cook and being done making the food, again, by 7:05. He could be done eating by 7:20 if he was in a hurry, but generally took until 7:30, at which point he spent the time until the match (which was generally scheduled for 8:00-9:30) doing chores or being sent by other teammates to fetch those who hadn’t turned up to breakfast to make sure they were awake and starting their day.

 

The reason he followed such a strict schedule was the fact that he knew if he didn’t, he would get distracted and _at most_  he would _maybe_  be in uniform and at breakfast with time to eat in the mornings, and there was a very slim chance he would remember to make breakfast when he was supposed to. All of the things he did were fairly important as far as he was concerned, and he fought pretty hard to stick to his schedule. He was a morning person by nature, which helped a lot, and had been trying to actually use the calendar he had in his room pinned to the closet door, but it was still difficult at times.

 

He got a painful reminder as to what happened when he slipped up one day in the summer.

 

His first warning really should’ve been the fact that when he went out for his jog at 6:40 (a bit later than he usually went in the summer, because Sniper really didn’t want to get up), the sun was already well up and it was already getting a bit warm outside. He realized halfway through his run that he’d forgotten that he was supposed to be making breakfast, and so rushed back, hurrying through a shower and deciding to just do his other stuff later.

 

And breakfast was fine (not many members of the team usually up and at breakfast early enough for the ten minutes of difference to matter), since breakfast was one meal he was actually fairly good at making, and he managed to track down all the teammates who skipped (a relatively low number), and he made it to the mission on time, and in uniform, and it was fine.

 

Half an hour into the mission, on what he was starting to figure out was one of the hottest days of the year, he realized he’d forgotten to put on sunscreen.

 

By the middle of the day during “break” (a temporary ceasefire that both teams took because they weren’t barbarians and everyone was getting pretty hungry by then), he did remember to put on sunscreen for what was _supposed_  to be the second time that day, but he’d already gone through the hottest part of the day and the damage was already done.

 

Before the day was even over, his arms, neck, and right ear (the one his headpiece didn’t cover) were all turning bright and then dark red, and by the evening when he tried to go to bed, the pain was starting to set in. He went to pull on his sleep shirt, but couldn’t even get it up over his head without pain lancing through him, so that wasn’t happening.

 

Sniper seemed to think it was pretty funny. There was a reason he went with a uniform of long-sleeved shirts and pants and a vest with a tall collar and a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses, even on the hottest summer days (“It’s not even that hot, not nearly half as bad as we get down in Oz,” he said, and Scout rolled his eyes). And he’d spend the majority of his life directly under the heat of the sun, the entirety of his skin pushed into an even, golden brown, mysteriously lacking in significant tan lines, the only places still a fairly pale cream color being the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet and the area just around his eyes where he’d apparently always worn sunglasses. Scout wasn’t so lucky—he’d also tanned significantly for his time in the desert, but that tan was reserved mostly for his arms. He’d spent some amount of time attempting to even it out so he didn’t look straight up ridiculous with thoroughly tan forearms and a completely pale chest and legs, but it only went so far when he generally spent the better part of the day busy with, y’know, killing people.

 

Sniper could only laugh at Scout for his misstep for so long. By the next day, the first day of the weekend, he could tell that Scout hadn’t slept well, and when he heard a yelp from the shower as Scout turned the water on, the amusement quickly faded into guilt. Scout came out of the shower tense, and found Sniper had pulled out one of his storage boxes (generally untouched) and was rifling through it.

 

“I, uh. Hey, could you do me a solid?” Scout requested feebly. “I don’t wanna deal with these burns until Monday, could you, like, send me through?”

 

Sniper looked up, clearly a bit startled. “Through Respawn?” he asked, attempting to confirm what he clearly already knew. A beat of hesitation, guilt flashing across his expression. “Love, you know I can’t do that. Physically, yes, but... I, I just can’t.”

 

Scout slumped, looking downcast. “Yeah. Yeah, I know,” he murmured. “Just... shit.”

 

“Just hold on, I might have a different solution buried somewhere in ‘ere,” Sniper said, turning to continue his search for whatever he was looking for.

 

Scout again attempted to just grit his teeth and pull on a shirt, but just bending his arms sent bolts of pain through him, even through the pain tolerance he’d built up over the years of being shot at and blown up and set on fire. He was tempted to go to the base and get ice or something, maybe even go to Medic and endure his ridicule for the sake of possible treatment, hell, he would try anything to start dealing with the burn at that point, but Sniper pulled out a slightly dented tin and put it on the table.

 

“I’m fairly sure this should still be alright,” Sniper said, nodding at the tin. “S’from the last time I headed home, and it lasts a good bit before goin’ bad, I figure.”

 

Scout picked up the tin, looking at it. He frowned at the curvy script of the label, taking a good moment to decipher it while Sniper put the storage box back away. “Mustache oil?” he asked incredulously. “The fuck is this for? And why do you have it?”

 

Sniper laughed. “Nah, that’s just the tin used to keep th’stuff in. It’s, er, medicine. It’s got aloe, beeswax, water, touch’a eucalyptus, honey... don’t remember all the ingredients, t’be honest, but it’s, er. It’s me mum’s old recipe for burns an’ the like. She used to fret about with me gettin’ sunburned with all the time I spent outside when I was just a little anklebiter, dug up some old family recipe to treat it, now she always sends some back with me. Works like a bloody miracle, it does. Ought to help.”

 

Sniper finished putting back the box, and took the tin from Scout, patting the tabletop. Scout took the cue and hopped up as Sniper unscrewed the cap off the tin, and held out his arm.

 

Sniper scooped a dollop of the gel-like... stuff, and rubbed it between his hands before carefully reaching out to place a hand on Scout’s arm.

 

He winced, first at the spike of pain, then at the unexpected cold, but relaxed quickly as the two feelings addressed each other. Sniper kept his hand there for a moment, then moved to start on Scout’s forearm, applying the gel over his skin in a thick coating.

 

“God, your skin’s about forty degrees, mate,” Sniper marveled quietly. “You’re gonna be in for it once the day heats up.”

 

“Forty in Celsius is, uh... like, a hundred degrees in real temperature?” Scout attempted, trying to distract himself from the stinging sensation that was starting to poke through the pleasant cool feeling.

 

“Close. ‘Bout a hundred an’ four.” Sniper moved up to Scout’s bicep, needing to scoop out some more gel. “An’ it’s not real temperature. The imperial system is ridiculous.”

 

“You’re ridiculous.”

 

“I’m also standin’ here at six in the morning before I’ve had my coffee and putting aloe on the sunburn you got yourself because you were careless,” Sniper said, raising an eyebrow at Scout and squeezing his arm lightly for a split-second.

 

“Ow ow ow ow ow—okay okay, fine, okay, you’re the best, you’re a saint, you’re totally right about everything all the time,” Scout surrendered quickly, loudly, and Sniper’s shoulders shook with a laugh.

 

“Right. Other arm,” he instructed, and Scout moved without further protest.

 

“God, I’m gonna be _dyin’_  later,” Scout sighed after a moment’s pause. “Think the doc would help if I went to the medbay, or does this count as a dumbass injury?”

 

“A whot?” Sniper asked, perplexed. “Whot’re you on about?”

 

“Basically, most’a the attack team and sometimes Demo, we used to be, uh, kinda just idiots, and make stupid bets or do dumb stunts, and Medic got annoyed with us goin’ to him every time we got hurt from goofin’ around, and so he said he wouldn’t heal us from our dumbass injuries anymore. He said that if we wanted healing we’d go to Hardhat and ask for a dispenser, an’ he always gave us a lecture, and then he got annoyed about having to restock the dispenser from us bein’ jackasses too. It was a whole thing.”

 

By the time Scout was done talking, Sniper was nearly done with his other arm. There was a beat of pause while he finished up Scout’s bicep, then got more gel. “I think this might count as a dumb injury, yeah,” Sniper finally said. “Might not be happy with you.”

 

Scout slouched slightly, and winced. “Ow. Yeah,” he mumbled.

 

“Turn around, I’ve gotta get y’neck,” Sniper instructed, and Scout pulled his legs up, sitting criss-cross on the tabletop facing the window now. The first touch had Scout flinching violently, gasping. “Yeah, that’s where it’s worst,” Sniper confirmed, sympathetic, hand drawing back while Scout recovered. “It’ll hurt a good bit more just from bein’ so close t’your spine an’ head, an’ it’s a good bit darker than your arms.”

 

“Shit,” Scout sighed.

 

“Just hold still, awright?” Sniper tried again, and Scout clenched his fists, but didn’t flinch away. “There’s a love. We’re nearly done, then I’m sure I’ve got some painkillers lyin’ about, and we can go be in the base for the hotter part of the day. It’s gonna be _boiling_  in here, an’ bein’ in the heat s’well as burned is the first six circles of hell, far as I’m concerned.”

 

Scout hummed tersely in the affirmative, still concentrating very hard on not moving away, shoulders tense.

 

“Isn’t there supposed to be a baseball game today?” Sniper prompted, a very obvious attempt at getting Scout to think about something else.

 

“Sox versus Senators,” Scout confirmed, voice strained, gripping at his knees pretty hard. “The Senators have been pretty garbage so far this season. Probably gonna wipe the floor.”

 

“Yeah?” Sniper asked, layering yet more aloe over his neck, some of it sticking to Scout’s hair towards the base of his neck.

 

“Mmm-hmm. Oh yeah, we went off against the White Sox a bit back. It was a close game, but, we lost.”

 

“Why’re there two teams both using the same misspelling of “socks” in the same, er, league of baseball?” Sniper asked.

 

“Don’t remember. Red Sox are better though,” Scout said, breathing a bit easier and tilting his head back to let Sniper get the significantly-less-burned front of his neck. The gel had a very faint smell to it, eucalyptus and something else. The honey, maybe? Whatever it was, it was surprisingly nice.

 

“Do they wear actual red socks into the game?” Sniper asked lightly.

 

Scout laughed. “Sorta? They’re not just plain red, they’re, like, red an’ white. I swear I’ve shown you a picture before.”

 

“Maybe.” Sniper scooped up a bit more aloe and traced Scout’s ear carefully, and then he was done, patting Scout on the shoulder. “There you go. All greased up. Feel any better?”

 

Scout carefully shifted, bending and unbending his arms, tilting his head back and forth, foreword and back. “Huh. Yeah, actually. Feels less, like, sandy. Like, less... I dunno how to explain it. I can move better now.” He turned around and shot a sunny smile at Sniper. “Hey, thanks! You’re the best!”

 

Sniper smiled a bit sheepishly, putting the cap back on the tin. “I try,” he said, placing the tin on the counter. “We can put more on later. Now get a shirt on, we can’t both be lazin’ about shirtless, what on earth will the neighbors say?” he joked.

 

“Probably, like, “oh man, that scrawny sunburned guy sure is lucky to have such a super cool and handsome dude around”. I know that’s what _I’m_  sayin’.”

 

“Oh, quiet, you,” Sniper chided, mussing Scout’s hair in a mixture of affection and embarrassment. “D’you have sun sickness s’well as sunburn?”

 

“Nah, but I might be gettin’ heatstroke.”

 

Sniper paused, staring at him, clearly trying to parse out the joke, noting how lighthearted Scout sounded. Finally he just sighed. “And why is that?” he asked, setting himself up for the punchline.

 

“From bein’ around this flamin’ hot guy all the time.”

 

Sniper sighed, giving Scout a disapproving look, the effect slightly ruined as he failed to bite back a grin.

 

“What?” Scout asked innocently.

 

“Are we really gonna have this argument again?” Sniper asked, raising an eyebrow.

 

“Argument? What argument?” Scout asked lightly. “Oh, you mean the one where you’re wrong an’ spouting lies an’ sayin’ you’re not the hot one between the two of us? Because that’s not an argument, that’s a misunderstanding, except it’s just you misunderstanding. You, the hot one.”

 

Sniper was starting to go a bit red, too, but not from sunburn. “You’re much hotter than I am,” he said. “Temperately speaking. At least forty degrees.”

 

“Yeah, but in terms of bein’ just super wicked attractive an’ handsome an’ a real knockout from lookin’ so damn good all the time—“

 

“Knock it off, I get it,” Sniper said, blushing in earnest now, unable to keep up eye contact, downright flustered. “You think I’m good-looking. Noted.”

 

“Nuh-uh, it’s not that I _think_  you’re good-looking—“ Scout protested, “—you just _are_  good-looking. Like, objectively. You could be a model, or an actor or somethin’ who just stands onscreen an’ looks pretty for two hours. I would _absolutely_  go to that movie.”

 

Sniper buried his face in his hands, flush spreading down his neck. “Alright. Understood. Please stop talking now,” he said, words muffled.

 

“Like, I would buy a _second ticket_  to go see that movie—“

 

“Love—“

 

“The movie that’s just you bein’ hot onscreen for two hours. But I probably couldn’t get a second ticket because it’s all sold out already. It’s sold out for the next three months, an’ breakin’ box office records. Film of the year.”

 

_“Love, please—“_

 

“Because you’re just so hot. Just a total babe. You’re just so goddamn good-looking. Like, _objectively_.”

 

Sniper whined something unintelligible into his hands, and Scout grinned.

 

"So does that mean I win the argument?"

 

"Yes. Fine. You win. I'm... yes, okay."

 

"Nah, I wanna hear you say it."

 

"I'm the hot one," Sniper mumbled, whole face on fire.

 

"Damn right," Scout said, satisfied with his victory.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[if u dont kill your boyfriend with compliments are you even really dating
> 
> remember to wear sunscreen, kids]]


End file.
